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SECTION OF A FRIEZE SURMOUNTED BY TWO ENRICHED MEMBERS
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SECTION OF A FRIEZE SURMOUNTED BY TWO ENRICHED MEMBERS
195-215 AD
Earlier Severan (193-235 AD) style
Earlier Severan (193-235 AD) style
Pentelic marble
Height: 30cm
Width: 65cm
Width: 65cm
Museum number: S103
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 109
On display: Study
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
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Curatorial note
The carved enrichment of this large fragment consists mainly of the left side of a scroll motive unit in the frieze proper, surmounted by two enriched members. The upper of these two has acanthus leaf, the lower smaller scale acanthus leaf in reverse. The acanthus scroll in the frieze, of which the left end, two flowered loops, and half of the central foliate-vase (calyx) motive survive, continued the same carved arrangement on its right hand side.
It is of heavy, high relief in an exceptionally fine earlier Severan (195-215 AD) style. The precise parallel for the cutting of the upper acanthus leaves is furnished by work in a similar upper position on the Severan fragments from the rostrum, presently (1950s) near their original position in the Roman Forum. This particular style developed out of the porticoes around the Hadrianeum, as seen by the colossal fragment formerly upended and now lying on its side near the Via della Tre Pile at the foot of the Capitol. The closest stylistic parallel in every detail and perhaps from a related monument is the section of frieze surmounted by two enriched members, lying on the floor in the cloister of the church of S. Paolo fuori le mura, Rome.
It is of heavy, high relief in an exceptionally fine earlier Severan (195-215 AD) style. The precise parallel for the cutting of the upper acanthus leaves is furnished by work in a similar upper position on the Severan fragments from the rostrum, presently (1950s) near their original position in the Roman Forum. This particular style developed out of the porticoes around the Hadrianeum, as seen by the colossal fragment formerly upended and now lying on its side near the Via della Tre Pile at the foot of the Capitol. The closest stylistic parallel in every detail and perhaps from a related monument is the section of frieze surmounted by two enriched members, lying on the floor in the cloister of the church of S. Paolo fuori le mura, Rome.
Provenance
Rome; collected by Charles Heathcote Tatham for the architect Henry Holland during the 1790s. Labelled (together with another Soane fragment Vermeule 94/S13) in the Tatham Drawing as one of the Prince Borghese's fragments; therefore one of those described in Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, p. xxxx [reference needs to be checked]
Literature
Tatham: Drawings, 3B.
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